Fiji Water Company Targeted In Greenwashing Lawsuit

This morning, Environmental Leader broke the news that controversial bottled-water giant Fiji Water would be the focus of a class action lawsuit that alleges the company “has profited by greenwashing claims that it’s water products are carbon negative.”

The suit, which was filed in California by the Newport Trial Group on behalf of Desiree Worthington and others, seeks restitution for “the false claims from which [Fiji Water Company has] richly profited.”

After widespread criticism for the immense carbon footprint of collecting, packaging, and shipping its plastic bottled water products to consumers all over the world, Fiji Water made a public pledge to go carbon-negative (not just carbon neutral) in 2007.

To make good on the claim that it is “the world’s only carbon negative bottled water,” which the company has used to aggressively market their products to earth-conscious consumers for years, Fiji would have to remove more carbon pollution from the atmosphere than they release into it during production.

According to the Newport Trial Group’s complaint, the “Defendants [Fiji Water Company] justify this claim by employing a discredited carbon accounting method known as ‘forward crediting.’ Thus, Defendants do not remove more carbon pollution than they create; they simply claim credit for carbon removal that may or may not take place – up to several decades in the future.”

Currently, no information is available about the amount of restitution being sought by the plaintiffs.

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64 comments

We have a Pur water filter and a bunch of empty plastic water bottles. I just keep refilling them w the filtered water. When I was growing up we had our own well. City tried to condemn everyone's wells when they put in city water lines. My dad didn't go for it. I'm not paying over a dollar for some water!!! Every so often I run them thru the dishwasher, and they're perfectly clean. We are all too germophobic anyway.

That's the one thing wrong with a lot of the carbon use freaks. While Fiji (and other businesses) can't prove the are carbon neutral, the carbon freaks can't prove they aren't, ... so let's all just assume the worst of everybody. The biggest producer of carbon is the earth itself, and most everything on earth is reliant on carbon is some form or another.

I am sorry I just drink Tap water and I also filter it before use. people need to wake up and quit buying into every craze. Plastic bottles should be baned or have extravigant deposits placed on them like 5X the amount it takes to make them recycle and reuse the plastic. And now people are getting crazy about the plastic containers thet the new brew bot machines use. Wake up ger a reusable coffee filter get rid of your plastic bottles and live a healthier life. they are sucking you into consumerism at its worst. Geez!

Number 1: stop drinking bottled water period unless necessary in events such as a contamintaed water supply. Consuming bottled water is environmentally unfriendly regardless of where the water originates. Bottled water takes water from one watershed and transfers it to others.

If you live on the west coast and pee into the Pacific Ocean after drinking Fiji water you can at least claim that you are returning the water to the Pacfic Ocean watershed.

We almost bought the property across from the Fiji Water Plant- pls scroll down and read my last post!

As Bad as the Bottle is-You would be better off eating the plastic than drinking that water.

3rd world countries- esp. dictatorships like Fiji accept money from companies to allow an anything goes policy including listing contents. Hope they have the water analized in this law suit- neurotoxic chemicals are used in the sugar cane fields across the road from the plant.
BEWARE! a study once showed that childhood luekemias were on the rise and attributed it in my area to imported apple juice- carcinogenic chemicals were found in the juice.